Rubio’s Folly

National Review helped launch Marco Rubio to prominence in his seemingly quixotic quest for the GOP Senatorial nomination against Charlie Crist and National Review has now declared the Gang of Eight immigration bill of which Rubio is a chief sponsor to be Rubio’s Folly (cover below). NR senior editor Jay Nordlinger appeared on Morning Joe briefly this morning to explain why, and Jay’s critique of the bill on the show serves as a decent counterpoint to Senator Rubio’s message to us supporting the bill.

The Rubio spokesman who sent us the message on behalf of Senator Rubio tonight is a young friend whom I have long respected. He also recently defended the immigration bill with some vehemence against the charge that it would instantly gut the popular E-Verify system that is widely used to exclude illegal immigrants from jobs, and then create an enforcement gap for years before the arrival of a replacement system. In several emails to the Daily Caller, Neil Munro reported, Senator Rubio’s spokesman repeatedly denounced the analysis of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to this effect. But he declined to supply bill language that shows how E-Verify is enforced once it is canceled, and before a replacement is developed by contractors, deployed by agencies and approved by the courts. And at last word a technical change had been made to the bill through a manager’s amendment to “clarify” the continuation of the E-Verify program.